Retainers

Recurring fees and prepaid hour blocks that track their own burn, draft their own invoices and lock the time they billed.

Applies to:

Admins

A retainer is a standing deal with a client: a fee each period with some hours included, a prepaid block of hours, or a flat monthly fee with nothing metered. Describe the deal once and Quanta tracks the burn, drafts the invoices on schedule, and settles each period's time so it can never be billed twice.

Retainers need the Retainers permission and the workspace switch (Workspace Settings → General → Features → Retainers). They live under Business & Projects → Retainers, and a project's sheet has a Retainer tab for one scoped to that project.

The Retainers list: each retainer with its scope, cadence, burn and next invoice.

Setting one up

New retainer opens the form. Top to bottom:

Setting	Options
Name (optional)	Defaults to something sensible.
Applies to	Just this project, or all of the client's projects: one allowance pooled across every project of this client, current and future. A client-wide retainer has to be the client's only active one.
How it's billed	Every period, or Once, as a prepaid block (a single block with no periods and no reset).
Cadence	For a recurring retainer: Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly (a maintenance plan billed once a year).
Start date	When the first period begins.
Invoice each period	At period start (in advance) or At period end (in arrears).
What's included	Nothing: the charges are the price and time is tracked for reporting only. Hours: a set number of hours each period (Hours in the block for a prepaid block). A budget: an amount of work at your billable rates, so senior time uses it up faster; optionally with a Rate discount.
Covered people	Everyone, or specific people. Time from anyone not covered bills normally, on the same invoice.
Unused hours (or Unused budget)	Expire each period, or Roll over (capped) up to Max carried hours (or Max carried amount).
Time beyond the allowance	Not billed, Billed at each person's rate, or Billed at a flat rate (Flat rate per hour).
Bill that time	On the next period's invoice, or On its own invoice at period end.
Billed every period	The lines on every retainer invoice: the fee itself plus anything else fixed, such as Hosting, each with a quantity and price. Add line adds one. For a prepaid block this is Billed up front, with the Block price.
Also bill expenses	Adds approved billable expenses on the project (or the client's projects) to each invoice at cost.
Payment terms, Tax profile	As on an invoice.
Auto-draft invoices	Let Quanta create the draft invoices at each boundary. Off means you press Bill fee now yourself.
Visible in client portal	Show this retainer, its usage and its invoices in the client portal. The workspace and client visibility settings must also allow retainers.
Auto-pay	Off, Charge when sent or Fully automatic. See Auto-pay below.

Only billable time draws a retainer. If the project bills as non-billable or fixed fee, the form offers to Turn on hourly billing with a Default billable rate when you save.

What happens each period

At every period boundary (or when you close a period by hand) Quanta cuts a statement: it sweeps all unbilled covered time to date, works out covered hours, overage and carry, and settles those entries so they show a lock in the timer (Part of the closed statement … on retainer …). Then it bills whatever is owed, following your Invoice each period and Bill that time choices. A period with nothing owed produces a statement and no invoice; an invoice is never $0.

Time logged late lands in the next sweep rather than leaking. Non-billable time never draws the retainer.

The retainer page

Click a retainer for its page:

A retainer page: the summary cards, the terms, payment and internal settings, and the invoices tab.

Needs attention: a banner at the top when something is waiting on you, such as a declined card, an overdue invoice, billing that hasn't run or a block over its hours, with the button that fixes it.
Summary cards: this period's usage (or the block's balance), the fee, and when the next invoice goes out.
Terms: the deal as the client sees it, beside Payment (auto-pay and the saved card) and Internal settings the client never sees.
Invoices: every invoice the retainer produced, with its auto-pay state, and buttons to copy the payment link or email it.
Usage by period: each closed period's hours against the allowance, a trend across them, and the invoices each one settled. Reopen puts a closed statement back if something was logged late or wrongly (its entries become unbilled again). On a one-off block this tab is the Ledger: every purchase, top-up, time logged, wrap-up and write-off, with the balance after each.
Time entries: everything that drew the retainer, a period at a time, with column filters for person, project and status, grouping, and a CSV download.

Actions in the header:

Edit the deal. Lines the retainer generates on invoices are locked to it; change the deal here, not on the invoice.
Bill fee now: draft the fee invoice immediately, for example at signing.
Top up block (one-off blocks): add hours, with a draft invoice for them. A top-up can be removed, which deletes its invoice and returns the hours.
Lock entries to date: settle everything so far without waiting for the boundary.
Wrap up this block when a prepaid block is finished, writing off any overrun or billing it per the overage rule; Undo wrap-up reverses it.

Auto-pay

Auto-pay charges a card your client saved to each retainer invoice. The card is entered on Stripe's checkout page and kept by Stripe on your connected account; Quanta only stores its brand, last four digits and expiry. Choose it on the retainer form:

Auto-pay	What happens
Off	Clients pay by link, or you record the payment.
Charge when sent	You review each draft; sending it charges the client's saved card.
Fully automatic	Each period's invoice is sent and charged with no review. Only offered when the invoice is the same amount every time: not for a one-off block, and not when time beyond the allowance is billed, time from people outside the covered list is billed, or expenses are billed.

The Auto-pay setting needs the client portal switched on, Stripe connected under Integrations and online payments allowed for the client. Until then the retainer page says what's missing.

Your client saves the card from a retainer invoice. The invoice page asks How would you like to pay? and offers to pay now and save the card, to save the card and charge the invoice on the day its period starts, or to pay once without saving it. A saved card is never charged before the invoice's period starts. See Retainer auto-pay for what your client sees.

The retainer page has an Auto-pay panel:

The Auto-pay panel on a retainer page: the saved Visa card, who saved it and when, and a paid charge for the retainer's invoice.

The card on file, who saved it and when, or No card yet until your client saves one.
Email invoice sends the retainer's invoice that hasn't gone out yet, or sends the oldest unpaid one again (Email invoice … again). With no invoice yet, the panel tells you the first invoice will ask your client to set up auto-pay.
Copy invoice link copies the online link of a sent, unpaid invoice, to paste wherever you talk to your client.
Remove card stops the automatic charges. Only your client can save a card again, from the page of their next unpaid invoice.
Every charge with its date, invoice, amount, status and, for a failed one, the reason.

A declined card is tried again three days after the first attempt and once more at seven days. Your client is emailed a link to pay or update the card, and you are emailed too. After the last attempt the invoice falls back to your normal payment reminders.

The list

Each row shows the retainer and its client, Scope (Client-wide or the project), This period (hours used against the allowance, days left, and how overage bills), Fee, Cadence, Next invoice (with auto-draft when Quanta will create it) and how many Invoices it has produced. The Active and Deactivated tabs split the list; a badge marks a block as Exhausted or a one-off as Completed.

With the fee billed At period start (in advance), the first fee invoice is drafted the moment you create the retainer, so a new deal shows one invoice straight away.

Status

Deactivate stops auto-drafting and stops time drawing the retainer; history and invoices stay and it can be reactivated. Delete stops future generation; invoices already generated are not affected.

Retainers and budgets

A budget is a guardrail for your team; a retainer is a deal with the client. They do not reference each other. If you just want a warning at 80% of the hours you quoted, use a project budget.